All of 'No Line on the Horizon' - due for release next week - can be heard for
free on website Spotify.

U2's 'No Line On The Horizon' is the most eagerly awaited album of the year, with advance reviews declaring it their best since the glory days of 'The Joshua Tree' and 'Achtung Baby'. The Daily Telegraph's Andrew Perry called it "less a record than an event, breathtaking in its ambition and its shimmering, mesmerising and sometimes outright volcanic sound". It is not available to be bought (or downloaded) until next week, but by registering with the free Spotify service, fans can already listen to it to their hearts content.

U2's stadium allies Radiohead shook up the business in 2007 when they made their album 'In Rainbows' available to download for free, asking consumers to only pay what they wanted. Although a majority paid nothing at all, the band and their label made enormous profits through special editions and by keeping a larger slice of the pie. U2 have not gone quite so far. Yet the very fact that a group in their position would make their music available to be heard for free suggests that the days of paid for albums are numbered.

It is certainly a major coup for the newly launched Spotify, an unlimited music "streaming" service which many believe is the model for the future of the music business. Spotify describes itself as an internet radio service in which listeners make their own playlists. It has deals with all major labels, giving it a vast catalogue to rival popular download site iTunes. Users hear a 15-second advert every half hour (while music without adverts is available for a £9.99 subscription).

It is, in essence, a vast digital jukebox in the ether. Its biggest limitation is that you can't currently download music to listen to on an MP3 player, in a car, or on any other portable music device. U2 can still expect to go to number one all over the world when their album is released for sale next week, but the writing for the CD is surely on the wall. Once the technology has made the next step, so that the music can be streamed directly to mobile devices, then it is hard to see why anyone should need to own their own copy of an album. Everything you could ever want to listen to will be available, anytime, anywhere, at the click of a button.

Whether advertising revenues alone can support the music business in this fashion is open to question. Yet record companies are embracing Spotify in the hope that it will bring an end to rampant illegal downloading. When the U2 album leaked online at the weekend, it was downloaded over 100,000 times in the first ten hours. But now you can listen to it on Spotify faster and easier, without breaking the law.